


Friends or Salad?

by Twilight2000



Category: Foreigner universe - Cherryh
Genre: Foreigner, Gen, Set before Book 3, in the first 6 mos after Jase landed. Language is REALLY a problem.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 18:53:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight2000/pseuds/Twilight2000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jase landed, everything got topsy-turvy very fast.  Neither Bren nor Jase were able to find the person they thought they knew when Jase was still "topside" - this is a moment in time where they begin to find that in each other - a moment of hope that maybe those two men still really do exist, just buried under stress, the demands of duty and the lies they must tell each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends or Salad?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Serenade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenade/gifts), [http://meteordust.livejournal.com/](/gifts?recipient=http%3A%2F%2Fmeteordust.livejournal.com%2F).



Friends or Salad

  


Merry Christmas!

"Jase, you can't treat them like Salad – they honestly have no word for "friend" no matter how hard you try."  
"So what do you call them when you _like_ them?"  
"You don't, Jase. They don't have friends anymore than they _like_ people. It's just not a part of their hardwiring." Jase was still at the very beginning of leaning the Atevi language. He would learn the children's variant first, with no need for constant calculation so he would not insult with infelicitous numbers. The staff understood that. The real problem was that there were still moments between Ship Language and Mosphei' that confused them. How the hell they were going to manage the whole Atevi thing on top of that, Bren was really beginning to question.  
"OK – so if you _like_ someone, how do you express that?" Jase was bound and determined to find a "word" for _like_ – not getting that the concept didn't exist, it wasn't a word thing.  
"You don't. You may have close association with someone, you have man'chi to them or they to you, but you don't just _like_ someone. That concept, in Ragi, is reserved for food.  
Jase looked both confused and frustrated. Not that Bren found that surprising. Here they were, in the breakfast room, windows wide open with the end of summer air coming in and poor Jase only here two months. He still spoke in ship language, which, while different from Mosphei', was nothing compared with the jumps he was having to make to Ragi. The air was alien enough – having to deal with a whole population that couldn't _like_ you or have friends or understand love? That was enough to drive anyone a little batty. That was only complicated by the ship's dependence on computers and a tendency to think in binary. To Jase, everything was yes or no, on or off. To an Atevi, even numbers were almost always infelicitous, they tended to think in threes – like yes, no and maybe. Maybe was very important to the whole Atevi way of thinking. That difference might be even harder to overcome for Jase than a horizon.  
"Let me try again, Jase. The War of the Landing, remember that?"  
"Yes, you've told me. It was all due to a misunderstanding on both sides. But how…"  
"Remember, they have no concept of friendship or love. They have man'chi, Jase. An instinctive need to follow a leader or an association. Unlike our idea of liking who we like, this is a biological imperative that developed from herd instincts. Telling Banichi that you like him makes him wonder why you think he's a salad. I know, I've done it and it confused him mightily." Bren was still embarrassed at that memory.  
"This is going to make my brain hurt, Bren. Can we, just for this morning, speak in Mosphei'? I'm still making mistakes in *that* because our languages have drifted in the last couple hundred years."  
Bren sighed internally. He realized it would be some time before Jase was ready to speak in Ragi all the time but it was frustrating to have him run back to ship language every time he got off kilter. Maybe if he found a way to help him relax they could return to Ragi?  
"For breakfast, Jase-nadi, certainly. Remember, Saidin will only answer to Ragi. Whether that's all she knows is speculation at this point." Bren smiled, he was pretty sure she had some Mosphei', but would never admit it.  
Jase smiled, something he did rarely enough these days, "Thank you, Nadi Bren. I still have trouble with all this uncontrolled weather, much less salads."  
"Fair enough. So, I don't know how much time we'll have or when I'll be able to arrange it, but when I can put a couple of days together, what would you prefer to do for recreation?"  
"Recreation? Do you mean something to do when not working?"  
Bren had to smile now. Jase had been in that ship his whole life, he'd never really been "not working" a day of that. He understood "off duty" – but that wasn't the same thing. "Right, when not working. We could perhaps go to the shore and see the ocean, or go to the mountains and see the forest. Tabini-aiji has homes in a number of places that I'm sure we could spend a couple of days at if I ask."  
"As long as no one is trying to kill anyone that week, right?" Jase grinned as he took a bite of toast.  
Bren grinned right back, "Yea, that, nadi Jase." Every now and then the light and easy guy he knew on the radio would peak out. Not often enough. Never often enough.  
"I've always wanted to sail."  
"You don't think that's a little ambitious for a first outing?" He had trouble with the sky, much less a bobbing boat on a moving sea.  
Jase had the grace to look a little chagrined, "Maybe just a little. OK, how about horseback riding? I've read about that in the archives, what do the Atevi have that takes the place of horses and can we ride them?"  
Between bites of curdled eggs, Bren nodded, "Not horses, Mecheiti. And as long as you don't mind riding on an animal that looks more like a camel from old Earth that's built for 8 to 9 foot tall people and has the disposition of a – well – camel, if the old stories are right, than sure, there's something you can ride here." Bren hoped Jase was still able to hear sarcasm through all this atmosphere.  
"Hmm. Perhaps not. As I remember from the stories, they tended to spit in your eye. I think that might be saved for later in my education. Do you shoot?"  
Ouch. That was something he was going to have to break Jase of. Humans and guns did not mix in Atevi culture. Never mind what he kept under his bed. "One doesn't shoot, Jase-nadi. Guns are strictly proscribed for us off the island of Mospheira."  
"That's ok, I've never shot one either. Not the greatest idea onboard ship." Jase nodded to himself, clearly enjoying both breakfast and the conversation.  
Bren thought for a moment, "Archery? Bow and arrow? We could perhaps go to the forest and try to shoot small game with bow and arrow. How does that sound?"  
"Bow and arrow? Um, I'm not sure I know what those look like, Bren. And killing small animals? Is that really a sport here?"  
Eating all that reprocessed algae on board really made this far more hard for Jase than it should be. "Jase, what do you think that meat you just ate was? We don't have algae tanks down here, we have wild animals and we eat them."  
"I know. It's still hard. So many concepts that we all took for granted for so long. We expected to find you on a space station – and that life isn't so different from ours. We knew there would be a small colony down here, but we never thought you'd be so divorced from space!"

Bren could understand that part, at least, "Jase, I know it's different and more for you than for me. I studied my whole life for this, you got thrown into the deep end with almost no warning. I get that it's hard. But if we're ever to get you back to _Phoenix_, we have to get those ships built. And that means working within the cultural constraints we have." Bren mimed using a bow and arrow, "So, shall we go hunt small game?"  
Jase smiled again and mimed a bow and arrow of his own, "Ah, I remember now. OK, I'll get used to this one day, Nadi Bren. Let's see if we can find some small game to hunt!"  
Bren nodded. Jase had said that last part in Ragi, almost as if he didn't realize he had switched languages. There was hope here. One day, there would be a shuttle and Jason would be able to rejoin _Phoenix_. But for now, hunting and salad would have to do.


End file.
